An Introduction to the History of Western Europe

by James Harvey Robinson

Clive defeats Dupleix.

But the English colonists, in spite of the fact that they were mainly traders, discovered among the clerks in Madras a leader equal in military skill and energy to Dupleix himself. Robert Clive, who was but twenty-five years old at this time, organized a large force of Sepoys and gained a remarkable ascendency over them by his astonishing bravery. Dupleix paid no attention to the fact that peace had been declared in Europe at Aix-la-Chapelle, but continued to carry on his operations against the English. But Clive proved more than his equal and in two years had established English supremacy in the southeastern part of India.

Clive renders English influence supreme in India.

The 'Black Hole' of Calcutta.

Battle of Plassey, 1757.

At the moment that the Seven Years' War was beginning, bad news reached Clive from the English settlement of Calcutta, about a thousand miles to the northeast of Madras. The subahdar of Bengal had seized the property of some English merchants and imprisoned one hundred and forty-five Englishmen in a little room, where most of them died of suffocation before morning. Clive hastened to Bengal, and with a little army of nine hundred Europeans and fifteen hundred Sepoys he gained a great victory at Plassey over the subahdar's army of fifty thousand men. Clive then replaced the subahdar of Bengal by a man whom he believed to be friendly to the English. Before the Seven Years' War was over the English had won Pondicherry and deprived the French of all their former influence in the region of Madras.

England's gains in the Seven Years' War.

When the Seven Years' War was brought to an end in 1763 by the Treaty of Paris, it was clear that England had gained far more than any other power. She was to retain her two forts commanding the Mediterranean, Gibraltar, and Port Mahon on the island of Minorca; in America, France ceded to her the vast region of Canada and Nova Scotia, as well as several of the islands in the West Indies. The region beyond the Mississippi was ceded to Spain by France, who thus gave up all her claims to North America. In India, France, it is true, received back the towns which the English had taken from her, but she had permanently lost her influence over the native rulers, for Clive had made the English name greatly feared among them.

Beginning of trouble with the American colonies.

207. England, with the help of her colonists, had thus succeeded in driving the French from North America and in securing the continent, with the exception of Mexico, for the English race. She was not, however, long to enjoy her victory, for no sooner had the Peace of Paris been signed than she and her American colonies became involved in a dispute over taxation, which led to a new war and the creation of an independent English-speaking nation, the United States of America.